There's A New Style Of Commune Living In S.F., For Those Who Never Want To Be Alone

Likely inspired by this story about the new communal living development going up at Harrison and 12th, the NYT today jumps on the bandwagon with S.F.'s new-style commune scene. The euphemism du jour: "intentional communities."

We ourselves just learned of this organization Embassy SF that manages a bunch of properties around the city where Millennials are living together in harmony with shared living spaces and little privacy. They're used to it though, because there are so many of them, and their college dorms were probably similarly overcrowded.

There are apparently about 50 such spaces in and around the city right now, not all of them managed by Embassy. One that's described in the piece called Langton Labs, which must be on Langton Street in SoMa, sounds kind of scary and depressing.

If the Embassy is the Four Seasons of San Francisco’s commune scene, Langton is the hostel that took its decorating cues from the A&E show “Hoarders.” On the Thursday before Halloween, an overflowing blue Dumpster stood before a kitchen, which contained an array of potted plants amid dozens of spice bottles, a jar of Vegemite and a pumpkin.

The compound had just received a half-dozen boxes of dead animals. Mr. Partensky said the carcasses would be used to make chimeras (creatures made up of parts from different species) during a coming Halloween party, and pointed to a fetal pig with owl’s wings hovering over the garage.

Yikes, right?

And it's not like sharing space this way is going to make for super-cheap rent either. The price they quote in the piece is $1,200 a month and up.

Anyway, there's an application process to get into most of these places, but if you're the kind of person who likes to come home from work to find 19 strangers rehearsing a performance piece in your living room, or something similar, then commune living might be perfect for you!